1. Field of Technology
The present application relates generally to computer networks. More specifically, the present application is directed to management of network capacity to mitigate degradation of network services during maintenance.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
A network generally includes a plurality of network elements that are interconnected by physical link segments forming one or more links to facilitate transmission of data between endpoints via at least one of the links of the network.
Often, network operations personnel need to evaluate the impact of certain changes to the network before the network changes are implemented in order to mitigate possible degradation of services via the network. For example, there are times when one or more network elements or physical link segments of a link require maintenance. During such maintenance, the link is taken offline and invariably reduces the available bandwidth between the endpoints to those online links that interconnect the endpoints.
A traffic outage simulator exists to help operations personnel in analyzing the impact of taking a particular link between two endpoints offline. While the traffic outage simulator forecasts the impact from the reduction of bandwidth as a result of the link being taken offline, the simulator does not account for the impact of real-time outages and degradation of services on the remaining links.